In this episode, Kelly Halpin joins Buzz Burrell for an hour-long conversation about FKTs, mountaineering and scrambling.
Wyoming mountain runner Kelly Halpin just set the first women’s unsupported fastest known time (FKT) on Mount Kilimanjaro, running up the steep Umbwe Route and back down in a single day. Buzz Burrell talks with her about what “unsupported” means on a mountain where park rules require a guide, how she worked within those rules as a guest, and why she thinks style matters as much as the number on the clock.
Then, Buzz and Kelly talk risk in mountain running: why big-mountain records attract fraud, how easy GPS routes and Strava crowns pull people into terrain they’re not ready for, Kilimanjaro’s shrinking glaciers, the loose couloir in Greenland where she thought she might die, and the lessons from Hillary Gerardi’s Mont Blanc record and Kilian Jornet’s long career. Kelly also covers her solo Wind River High Route FKT, decades of Teton scrambling, and why she’s still waiting on the Grand Traverse.
Listen/watch the latest episode of The Buzz Podcast below or however you listen to podcasts.
More About Kelly Halpin
Kelly Halpin, 40, grew up in Jackson, Wyoming, and is a pro mountain runner and climber for La Sportiva and Black Diamond who works as a freelance illustrator and publishes her own nature-themed children’s books. Most of her record runs are solo and unsupported.
Fastest known times (FKTs)
- Grand-Middle-South Teton Trifecta (2026): Women’s unsupported FKT in 6:55:47, set Aug. 21.
- Superstition Ridgeline Out-and-Back (2024): Overall FKT, solo and unsupported.
- Teewinot Mountain (2023): FKT, solo and unsupported.
- Wasatch Ultimate Ridge Linkup (WURL): Black Diamond lists a 2022 overall solo, unsupported FKT. She also ran it in under 24 hours in 2019.
- Teton Bullseye (2022): Solo, unsupported FKT on the nearly 50-mile route, which climbs the Grand Teton and then circles the massif with more than 15,000 feet of gain.
- Teton Crest Uppercut (2022): Unsupported mixed-team FKT with Fred Most, in 16:50:19.
- Teton Crest Trail (2019): Women’s record of 9:11, part of a season in which she set four FKTs in the Tetons and Wasatch.
- Wind River High Route: Women’s unsupported record, run solo.
Routes and firsts
- The Picnic: First woman to finish the Grand Teton Triathlon (bike from Jackson, swim Jenny Lake, climb the Grand, then reverse it), and part of the first team to do it unsupported. She has done several variations since, including a self-supported version over the Grand, Middle and South Tetons.
- “Moranic Sufferfest”: A similar bike-swim-climb challenge on Mount Moran, done with Bree Buckley.
- New routes: She created the Teton Center Punch with Fred Most, plus the Gros Ventre High Route and the Little Belly Linkup.
More About The Buzz Podcast
The Buzz is UltraSignup’s interview podcast, hosted by trail running legend and Fastest Known Time co-founder Buzz Burrell. Launched in 2025, it’s a conversation show, not a training show. Buzz talks with the athletes, thinkers, historians and innovators behind the sport’s biggest shifts, and he does it with a critical edge. He doesn’t sugarcoat things, and he doesn’t tell listeners what to think. He asks the right questions and lets them reach their own conclusions. Catch up on past episodes however you listen to podcasts.
Show Chapters:
0:00 Cold open: Have you ever thought you’d die running in the mountains?
0:50 Meet Kelly Halpin: mountain runner, illustrator and FKT record-holder 2:19 Wind River High Route: the solo FKT of the Year
3:51 Why Kelly loves solo efforts and growing up in the Jackson wilderness
6:36 Style over speed: solo unsupported, and Strava’s one-dimensional view
8:16 Kilimanjaro: the fastest unsupported women’s time, and how it came about
11:33 The park’s guide rule and the workaround that kept the run unsupported
14:46 Ethics, permits, and paying the crew for the day she ran
17:24 Local economy, the Inca Trail comparison, and running Meru
18:18 Hemingway’s Snows of Kilimanjaro, Kelly’s children’s books, and the vanishing glaciers
20:41 Simon Mtui as the go-to guide for Kilimanjaro FKTs
23:05 FKT fraud, verification, and clean ethical style
25:57 Braided trails and trail management on Kili
28:13 Risk and tragedy: why athletes embrace risk, and “nobody has a death wish”
33:05 The post-COVID rise in accidents: GPX files, Strava crowns and underprepared athletes
35:24 The Killian effect, and leading by example (Hilaree Nelson-style patience, Mont Blanc)
38:57 Feeling the altitude: euphoria near the Kilimanjaro summit
40:18 Back to the hook: Kelly’s near-death moment in Greenland
43:14 Loose rock on the Teton Center Punch, and Buzz’s Exum Ridge “light bulb” moment
45:59 Teton route-finding, and rescuing people on Teewinot
48:18 The Grand Traverse that got away, and the Grand-Middle-South triple FKT
50:23 Gear, ropes and the Italian Cracks on the Cathedral Traverse
53:11 What’s next: Run Up for Air and a Moab event
56:02 Medieval Chamber FKT in Moab, and a plug to upload it to FKT
57:06 Wrap-up and thanks
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